Apparently this thing did fly. It was designed by Steven Nemeth in the early 1930s. He boasted that it was so simple to fly that a person who had never been off the ground could learn to fly it in 30 minutes. Plus, it could be housed in a hangar not much larger than an average garage.

There was only one prototype ever made, and it's not clear why the plane was never developed further. Disciples of Flight speculates that "the design’s low aspect ratio wing may have meant a lot of additional drag."

In 1979, two Vancouver businessmen, Orst Perry and Adolf Schiel, set a world record for traveling around the world on commercial airlines. They started in Vancouver and ended up in Vancouver. They did this in 54 hours, 42 minutes. It cost them $7000 each.

I can think of a lot better ways to spend $7000 than sitting on a plane for several days. But it seems that others have pursued this same record. A press release from Nov 2016 says that Brother Michael Bartlett set a new record for flying around the world on commercial airlines by doing it in 57 hours, 17 minutes.

That's slower than the time set in 1979, but I'm guessing that Bartlett must have adhered to stricter rules. It says that he had to "cross the equator and land at points that are approximately 108 degrees apart and roughly on the same north–south longitude."

Back in 1974, David Heaton spent $50,000 pursuing his dream of building an "aerocommuter" -- a two-person flying saucer that would "cost no more than a medium-priced American car," thereby allowing everyone to fly to work.

He claimed to have all the engineering problems worked out, but it doesn't sound like one of these things ever managed to leave the ground.

Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid.

Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.